Consumer Perspectives on Processing Technologies for Organic Food

Abstract

Over the last years, consumer demand for natural and healthy convenient food has increased, and with it the demand for organic convenience food. With convenience food, the processing level increases, which consumers are sceptical of. This holds especially for organic consumers who prefer natural, healthy, and sustainable food products. In the literature, consumer preferences are investigated for processed conventional food, but rarely for organic products. Therefore, this study investigates consumers’ knowledge, expectations, and attitudes towards selected processing technologies for organic food. Nine focus groups with 84 organic consumers were conducted, discussing preservation technologies of organic milk and orange juice. Results showed that participants had little knowledge about processing technologies but were interested in their benefits. Organic processing technologies should include fewer processing steps, low environmental impact, while keeping the product as natural as possible. Since consumers want to know benefits but not details of processing, asking consumers for their specific preferences when developing new processing technologies remains challenging. This paper shows how consumers’ benefit and risk perception including their want for naturalness, and scepticism for new technologies shape their evaluation of (organic) food processing technologies. Two consumer groups with different attitudes towards processing could be identified: ’organic traditionalists’ and ‘organic pragmatics’.

Czech Consumers’ Preference for Organic Products in Online Grocery Stores during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…According to [ 76 ], augmented reality and virtual reality technologies have been used to improve the online shopping experience. As we are concentrating on organic food, consumers trust organic food and organic certifications in European countries [ 52 , 77 ]. The European Union pushes for the development of ecological agriculture and supports it politically [ 78 , 79 ].…”

“…In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the topic of online shopping not only from consumers but also from researchers (e.g., [ 49 , 50 , 51 ]) and this expansion can also be expected in the future. The aim of our paper is to identify a profile of a typical online grocery shopper focusing on organic foods that are becoming increasingly popular [ 52 , 53 ].…”

An Exploratory Study of the Purchase and Consumption of Beef: Geographical and Cultural Differences between Spain and Brazil

“…Focus groups have become an important and reliable research tool in recent years that can lead to a more precise formulation of research questions [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ].…”

Information on the processing of organic food: consumers' perception

“…Consumers' evaluation of food technologies often relies on intuitive and approximate processes due to consumers' limited knowledge of the technologies implemented in food production (Siegrist and Hartmann, 2020). Recent research on consumers' perception of organic food processing technologies has highlighted two groups of consumers who have different reactions: a group driven by strong ecological and environmental values and a general skepticism to higher processing levels and processing technologies, and another group that accept higher levels of processing to obtain benefits in terms of convenience, low environmental impact and nutritional value (H€ uppe and Zander, 2021). Potential psychological barriers to acceptance of Processed organic food perception highly processed food products relate to personality traits like food technology neophobia (Cox and Evans, 2008;Giordano et al, 2018) to the perception of loss of naturalness (Rom an et al, 2017) and concern about food safety risks for new emerging agri-food technologies (Frewer et al, 2011;Meijer et al, 2021).…”